


Flickering Light

by december_girl



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: It gets a little dark, a not so joyful trip in stanley uris' mind, he's scared but he loves his friends so much, set in the cut scene outside neibolt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 07:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21032582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/december_girl/pseuds/december_girl
Summary: The world has always been black and white. Things were either right or wrong, good or bad. Those who believe in grey areas just have a wrong understanding of how things actually work, or, in Stan’s words, are incredibly dumb people that are egocentric enough to assume they know better about the universal order.orA trip in Stan's mind during their first visit at Neibolt





	Flickering Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is all kinda random but I felt the need to write something (after that train wreck of a movie) about this beautiful angel, who stole a piece of my heart, and his complicated mind. Let me know what you think! And if I wrote something wrong since English is not my first language...
> 
> p.s. The title comes from the quote "I wish I could say I'm a light that never goes out but I flicker from time to time"

Standing outside of that house he felt like someone, _something_, was watching him. The windows, with their rotten wooden boards as shutters, one blow of wind away from falling off, seemed like eyes and he knew that behind the door that one of his best friends was about to open there was nothing but darkness. To be fair, he was aware that there was going to be a hallway of some sort, with spider webs and whatever junkies left there all over the place, but to him it was just the mouth of a monster. A dark path that would lead them straight to hell. He knew it. He felt it.

Stan was standing there, trying to look sure of himself, like being so close to the house in Neibolt Street wasn’t twisting his guts, so that his friends wouldn’t make fun of him or call him a pussy, but his body wasn’t collaborating. His hands were already shaking wildly and he knew that soon it was going to spread to his whole body.

Stan ‘The Man’ they called him. Because he was mature, rational, boring maybe, he found himself thinking from time to time, but he knew that to his friends he was always the one who could put up a cold facade to the rest of the world because he was indifferent, superior even. Because he wasn’t afraid. He wished that were true. He wasn’t sure he could keep on pretending when everything in him was begging him to leave. To turn around and run without looking back. He could try to forget and pretend it never happened if he left now. Maybe one day it would actually work.

His train of thought was interrupted by Bill that was solemnly looking at him while handing him a bunch of straws that were gonna decide his destiny. The losers who got a short one were to follow their leader inside. He was lucky enough, so he stayed there watching as his three best friends walked in.

“W-we’ll look inside and c-c-call you if we find s-something” Bill had said and he hoped with everything he had that they wouldn’t find anything while their figures disappeared inside.

If they came out with nothing they could just ride back to the quarry or the barrens to enjoy their summer and forget all about this. Adults could figure that out, it wasn’t up to them. It shouldn’t be up to them.

Mike, Beverly and Ben were staring right at the house and the silence started becoming deafening. So his mind couldn’t help but wander to what led them standing out there and of course the woman, the one that appeared in his nightmares every night, made her way through his mind, clear like the day he saw her in his dad’s office. The point is, he didn’t actually _see_ her, he was just stressed about his bar mitzvah. Hallucinations happen to everyone, right? But, he had to admit to himself, maybe it wasn’t just that if all of the others had seen something.

He just wished he could forget. Or, you know what, unplug his brain altogether. Everything to get her out of there. But her features just got clearer and clearer until he felt like he was staring straight in her black eyes behind which there was nothing but darkness. Like all the light had been absorbed.

He felt like throwing up and a shiver ran down his spine making him evidently jolt. Mike gave him a worried glance but probably thought it wasn’t that important and turned back to the house keeping his arms crossed with his hands clenched into fists.

“Do you guys think they’re okay? It’s been a while. Should we go in?” Bev asked out of the blue, biting her nail. The boys looked at her but nobody dared to answer. Panic started rising in his chest and he started feeling like he couldn’t breathe as the minutes passed and no one was coming back. What if something happened? What if that clown was actually there and did something to them?

To Stan the mere existence of that… _thing_ wasn’t understandable and totally unbearable to his mind, it was just wrong. Because he knew it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just a clown, even though a creepy one, there was something more and he didn’t feel like finding out what that meant.

He felt as if digging into that even just a little meant getting lost. IT is the embodiment of everything that is wrong, and the woman he saw was just a small part of that, there was so much more. More darkness… actually the right word would be emptiness. More emptiness.

And the thought of that void would make the ground under his feet crumble, and everything else would fall on top of him, following down. Everything he believes in, his values, his faith, his view of what the world is and what it’s supposed to be, the whole fucking life he built in his small amount of time on this earth would just stop making sense, confronted with something like that. It’d be corrupted by something so twisted, it’d be meaningless, so what would be the point of its existence?

It would be kind of funny if it wasn’t a miracle that he didn’t feel like a loser for the first time in his life with a bunch of people that called themselves the losers club. He was a little embarrassed by it because, you know, he was still a 13 years old kid, but he loved them: he loved Bill’s stutter, Eddie’s hypochondria and Richie’s big mouth because that’s what made them who they are, those little things that others hate about them but that he wouldn’t change for anything in the world.

Bill wasn’t really good at speaking but it was their leader, one word from him and they would have followed him to the ends of the world. Eddie was afraid of every little germ and, to be honest, a pain in the ass, but he was always ready to patch them up and take care of them, all the while screeching because they ALMOST KILLED THEMSELVES, when they had just fell from a bike. Richie had a big annoying mouth that couldn’t stop running but when he was feeling down he knew just the right way to cheer him up and Stan was so thankful for that. He would have never told him that though, obviously; he wouldn’t have heard the end of it.

And he had just met Mike, Ben and Bev but for a reason that he knew was bigger than any of them, he felt a wave of affection towards them he couldn’t quite explain. He felt that in Ben’s kind smile, in Bev’s fierce expression and in Mike’s firm and sure presence, like a shield against the world, which was pretty odd given he met the guy a few days ago.

They were a bunch of weirdos, he knew that, but somehow they worked just fine like that. They felt like a family when they were all together, like the world couldn’t get to them. He felt invincible.

Until, standing out there, he felt his own mind fall into a dark place. His whole world chewed and swallowed by a monster that didn’t care about that love. IT didn’t care about any of the things that he used to cling to before any of this happened. All of those small details of life that made it worth living, like his friends’ smile at one of his witty comebacks or the quiet afternoons he spent sitting on a bench in the park, patiently waiting with a book unfolded on his lap for the bird he hoped to see. IT took all of that from him, like he could sweep away the happiness of his life with one single blow, making it impossible to reach. He even thought about praying for a moment, asking God to help him and save him. Hold on to his faith on order, on right and wrong and on how good always overcame evil, but IT would have made sure that none of his scared words of prayer reached their destination, like he could put fog all over the world leaving nothing but fear.

And in that fog his thoughts started getting lost and he sank in his own mind, like his body was still there but his brain was folding in on itself. He didn’t notice but his throat got thinner and he made a sound that sounded a lot like a rattling, like he couldn’t breathe, and almost at the same time he began to shake, an almost unnoticed shudder, but enough to be worrying, like his body couldn’t hold inside all of that anymore.

In that moment Mike turned his head and saw Stan’s eyes filled with tears, one moment away from streaming down his cheeks and falling into the grass at his feet. He had a scary expression that Mike had never seen before and he couldn’t help but wanting to help him, take him away from there, but he didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t sure that was his place.

Under Mike’s worried gaze Stan felt pulled back into reality with the urgent need to cling to someone, like he was drowning and needed someone to stretch out their hand before it was too late.

“I can’t go into that house, Mike. I can’t.” the smaller boy almost choked out. Mike put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him against his side providing Stan with all the comfort he could in that situation, knowing there were no words that could have made him feel better, no words to tell him that he was scared too or that he wasn’t alone.

So he just stayed there, holding Stan tight while he sobbed against his shoulder, pretending he could actually push away all of the horrible things they were experiencing with sheer willpower. But maybe, if he believed in it strongly enough, it could be true. And in that moment, when they were still young and could still believe, that might just have been enough.


End file.
